He reminds me of the seller of a house full of hidden damages, who the day after the closing when it doesn't matter nobly shows the defects to the moving in purchaser and says he was fooled too since he never saw them before.

I was one of those who bought a corn burning furnace. Back then a bushel of corn was $1.89. I have all of the farm machinery to grow corn, so when the price of corn started to go way up, I grew my own. Then the price of seed corn and fertilizer about doubled. I blame ethanol madness for the cost of everything.

And those of us who pointed out that corn based ethanol and even second generation ethanol were NOT effective substitutes for gasoline and that the energy required to produce the ethanol was actually MORE than the energy the ethanol produced were told to shut up.

We were rocking the boat, were Global Warming deniers,heritics when we pointed out that the cost of transportation, storage and production was counter productive to the supposed savings....but HEY...it is GREEN and that's all that counts. Right?

So, his self-interest trumped the planet's (assuming he believes all the AGW stuff he's been pushing, which is not a given). He's a selfish SOB. In that, he's not unique. What was unique was that his position allowed him to do great damage in pursuit of his own interests.

I can't stand the man, but has nothing to do with any sort of derangement and everything to do with the real threat this hypocrite poses. He's a serial mistake-maker and does it on a scale most can't dream to aspire to. Sure, this is an oldie but a goodie, but the man consumed how much more than the average family at a time he was clucking and tsk tsking everyone else? THAT'S the point at which I started loathing the man. He's not done much since to venerate himself.

How hot is it at the center of the earth again? How many typhoons do we get per year in the Caribbean?

Garage...That was a good responsive argument. Why do people on the right adore Sarah Palin and despise AlGore so much???Gosh darn, what could be the answer? All AlGore did was become the evangelist for the Global Warming Religion designed to rob the USA for the benefit of the UN cabal and get a huge fee for his work. Algore makes Benedict Arnold look like Mother Teresa.

An average guy doesn't have a Nobel prize on display in a multi-million dollar mansion that uses scads more energy than dozens of average men would use in their average houses...a Nobel prize won because of the lies he told about global warming.

You can ask the same question about anybody, and certainly any politician. Recognizing that many people (pretty much every politician) is motivated by self-interested factors is an excellent reason for scrutinizing closely proposals for a change in public policy. But 'attack the messenger' is a tactic that often comes back to bite you. After noting the whatever conflicts may arise from self-interest, it's best to turn quickly to the substantive reasons why any particular policy proposal is good or bad.

There was never much doubt that ethanol subsidies were preposterously wasteful; the economics never made any sense, while the politics was just as obvious.

Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every 'green' feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground.

The water (usually 67 degrees F) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.

Garage...You are channeling America's Politico. AlGore is actually a sad case of a man who had his career, his wealth, and his character formed by enablers giving him whatever he desired in life...much like Prince Charles. His Tipper princess has had it and left him as The Prince of Wales' princess left him. And those King's in waiting are both terrible whiners when they are not being worshiped by some weak minded idiots for being a weak minded idiot. The leftists need a better leader than the Goreacle.

Please stop calling Al Gore Manbearpig. Manbearpig is a figment of Gore's imagination according to Parker's and Stone's imaginations (a reality in Imaginationland of a later South Park episode, having been imagined by Gore).

I too admit to making mistakes, like the one about voting for Gore instead of Bush because I liked Gore and because Bush was the insufficiently serious son of a previous president, and because and I am against the sons and daughters and spouses of presidents being elected presidents. Oddly, at the time I felt Gore had -- what is it? -- gravitas, that word again, you know, like gravity, the force that pulls everything down, contrasted with levity.

Yesterday I did a web search [+"al gore" +bush +"academic record"] and was stunned by the content of the pages presented which included Kerry's records. I can see why those records are so carefully protected now, especially regarding our present president. It could only be embarrassing, otherwise they would be touted as irrefutable evidence of the man's brilliance.

Al and Tipper Gore have picked up a $8.875M luxury getaway in Montecito, CA; a swanky zip code that has attracted big name residents like Oprah Winfrey, Steve Martin, and Kirk Douglas. Records show that the approximately 6,500 sq. foot home boasts 6 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, a large pool house, 6 fireplaces, wood framed french doors, and carved stone detailing throughout.

Virtually everything that the "skeptics" have claimed regarding the "Global Warming" fiasco has been proven true. Virtually everything the "true believers" have claimed has been proven false. We win. It's just too bad we had to spend billions of dollars, and more than a decade of dishonest discourse, debunking your sorry asses.

How many miles of commuter rail lines could this country have built with the money that was spend on ethanol plants and the amount of money paid to farmers to grow the corn? Not that I'm in favor of trains, but I thought I'd help out garage. Jesus, man, what were you thinking?

Did you miss the word subsidy in there? That's a sure sign of bad economics at play, precisely what the TP's are most focused on, right? (At least generally speaking, if X were economically viable, it wouldn't require subsidies.)

Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.

Yes, we know Republicans actually "walk the talk", and people like Gore fly all over the world and live in huge, energy consuming, homes.

HD House, recipient of awards from the Soviet Union reminds us that today JFK was shot by a communist also infatuated with Russia. Like most, if not all, presidential killers and would-be killers Oswald was a lefty.

Someone needs to explain why - given his own admission that he has been lying FOR YEARS purely out of political self-interest - he should be taken seriously by ANYONE.

Even if you're a tree-hugging type, he should be sufficiently embarrassing that you should want him off the stage. Every argument he mouths can be dismissed with "what was in it for him?" and discredits the whole enterprise.

That people continue to blindly support him says pretty much everything you need to know about how fundamentally unserious the whole "green" movement really is.

Well MadMen, sometimes evil triumphs. I mean look at Obama getting elected. But we have to stay strong and stay in the game. What often happens is that when you play a team mulitple times in a season you can't win all the games. We play Philly twice and may meet in the playoffs. So I would rather lose now when our offensive line is all banged up then later in the playoffs.

I am still very confident that we have a good team and will be in the hunt for the Superbowl.

In fact I have a prediction for you that will make all of your heads explode.

Did you miss the word subsidy in there? That's a sure sign of bad economics at play, precisely what the TP's are most focused on, right? (At least generally speaking, if X were economically viable, it wouldn't require subsidies.)

I did miss a word in the original post ... "ending." Indeed, those in the tea party movement would likely favor ending the subsidies. But Greens? I'm not sure the feeling is as common in that community - but I could be wrong

But Greens? I'm not sure the feeling is as common in that community - but I could be wrong

Because Greens don’t like Corporate Welfare benefitting ADM and Ethanol makes the Third World hungry and it doesn’t really reduce carbon emissions, once you factor in the ENERGY it takes to make ethanol, grow ethanol, and the effect of the ethanol itself.

Quasimodo, environmentalists have been objecting to ethanol for years. Soon after the subsidies got rolling, it became obvious that ethanol required more energy than it produced. Most of the environmental issues concern water use, iirc.

And then there's the issue that Allen refers to -- that ethanol subsidies are driving up all sorts of costs for farmers.

But hey, the big farmers in Iowa like it, and Iowa has an outsized role in picking the presidential nominees, so the ethanol subsidies are probably here to stay, no matter which party is in charge.

Well, a commenter at HotAir did a little research and Al Gore's Latest billion dollar boondoggle will be... ALGAE! And he's, of course, going to use taxpayer money to make him and his company wealthy. All for the GREATER Good! It's amazing how often "follow the money" works and even more amazing how often partisan liberals will ignore it when it concerns to Gore.

David, make fun of the green lemmings all you want, but that does nothing to get at the root of the problem -- that your money is going to fund an inefficient industry that is driving up food prices and causing environmental damage -- and politicians from both parties are happy with it because it makes a some moneyed interests very happy.

I've done some cursory reading and the algae thing might actually work. It seems to be a question of scale, although, admittedly, I've not read much about it for six months or so.

I remember them saying they could provide enough power to run x number houses (it was a very large number) but it would take an algae processing field the size of Chicago. So what? What's all that desert real estate Lex Luthor was so keen to get his hands on good for except the one thing an algae plant needs...sunlight?

That's better than the Eagles vs. anyone. I told my son I would not watch a team led by a dog-killer, even if he has served his (too short, IMO) sentence. There was some wretched interview of the Eagles QB before the game that son was watching. I made him change the channel -- which was fine because the Simpsons were on. Eagles in the Superbowl? I'll throw a fundraising party for the SPCA at the same time.

The problem is multi-fold:1) Gorebull Warmening is a scam; but2) Ethanol (corn), Cellulosic Ethanol, Bio-Diesel, Algae Fuel, may or may NOT be viable, BUT the Federal Government ought not be in the business of funding or subsidizing them, i.e., “Picking Winners.”Let the market decide which or which mix of them is the best bet. Algae MIGHT be a good choice, but it might cost the equivalent of $4.50 a gallon in petrol, I just don’t see the need for Congress or anyone in any government paying people and then deciding which products they developed, “worked.”

Plus Algae is EXTREMELY susceptible to EMP attack and Zombies, zombies would thrive on it, man…get a grip! BTW, can you explain:1) Why the survivors on “The Walking Dead” don’t post guards and/or haven’t strung a concertina fence; or2) Why being so dumb, they’re still survivors?

The weak minded idiots like to talk about "renewable" energy. They mean we had better grow your own corn and convert it with energy into a form that has less energy than the cost to convert it and the cost of an equal amount of energy from Coal, Oil and Nat. gas. This scam can be replayed as long as another succor is born everyday. The beginning lie is always that energy in Coal, Oil and Nat. gas is la finite resource. Well that's a lie. Even as the sun will someday give out of helium, the earth will someday give out of Coal, oil and Nat. Gas, but these exhaustion time frames end so far in the thousands of year away future that it is stupid to care about either one.

I don't know if you follow football, but get ready for the Vikings to demand a new subsidized by the taxpayer stadium, or they're leaving. There are more Republicans in the political mix at the moment, and I think they'll try to get a new stadium built. What will Mondale do?

============I don't. He admits it after a consensus formed on the Left that the Greens were hornswaggled by Agribiz and farmers into a 150 billion dollar federal subsidy program.

*****************TRO said..."Where's his self-interest taking him these days?"

To massage parlors that offer happy endings I imagine.===========Travelling to Asia on business, before I was married I hasten to add....I considered happy endings massage establishments an Asian enhancement to civilization. I understand they were more prevalent in America 30 years ago...most got shut down. Why not happy endings?? Like a toy in a Happy Meal for kids.(In Asia, it is INTERESTING that the idea of "happy endings" spread to women going to their own version of such establishments - where masseurs and masseuses offer the Jap housewife, the harried Taiwanese factory worker a "test run" with the latest and greatest sex toys - and the establishment sells such toys at the place to "satisfied lady customers".

DBQ - And those of us who pointed out that corn based ethanol and even second generation ethanol were NOT effective substitutes for gasoline and that the energy required to produce the ethanol was actually MORE than the energy the ethanol produced were told to shut up.

We were rocking the boat, were Global Warming deniers,heritics when we pointed out that the cost of transportation, storage and production was counter productive to the supposed savings....but HEY...it is GREEN and that's all that counts. Right?

Too bad that food prices skyrocket. Eat less. Take a train.

EVERYONE that knew anything about energy and economics - which excluded the Greens but not the farmers and agribiz interests poised to make a mint off Miracle Ethanol!! taxpayer subsidies KNEW it was a giant scam. Unlike Brazils crop - using corn burned more fossil fuel than it saved. It was unsustainable economically without a massive carbon tax jacking up the price of gas to make the cost comparable to ethanol. It would likely lead to food shortages or at least sharply higher grain and grain-dependent goods for sale.

None of that was listened to - now DBQ and others can at least say "told you so, liberal and Green idiots!". Small consolation.

**************Look - you have GOT to give Garage credit for comparing Green God Gore to Right Wing Goddess Palin - at least on the fatuous logic "Whahl, she sure must be doing something right because she shure pisses off the people on the other side. Hyuk, hyuk!!"

Gore sure pisses a lot of people off. They can't stand the guy. But he has rabid supporters who say he MUST be right because he provokes such strong feelings in the opposition. And his rabid supporters rally to him all the more because they are convinced that Algore is being beaten up and persecuted by people unworthy of his obvious Godhood.

If Alaska could only move up its presidential primaries to the first one, then the Dems and the GOP would start subsidizing whale oil and Halibutanol as the renewable energy sources of the future. Alaskans don't doubt that Murkowski will bring home the Bacon.

So for Gore, the altruistic nobility of trying to save mommy earth gave way to the political expediency of garnering votes for subsidized ethanol futures to ADM and Monsanto for political support. Shocking...

So the rev is pro oil subsidies. Likewise, he must be pro ethanol subsidies, when ethanol is assessed w/ the gas tax.

Every subsidy has it's constituents who are eager to justify their special needs.

Rev would probably prefer to scrap the process of using oil co subsidies to indirectly reimburse folks paying the gas tax. It'd be cleaner to eliminate some of the gas tax while simultaneously eliminating the oil subsidies an equal amount. Of course, eliminating this backdoor reimbursement would show folks how road construction has (in effect) been funded by general revenue (a.k.a. deficit spending) rather than the gas tax.

The good ol' don't tax, but still spend theory of government. A conservative classic.

Rev, the gas tax is supposed to fund highway construction and maintenance, not subsidies for oil production.

Allen, I am well aware that the Vikings want a new stadium. The fact that the GOP controls the statehouse doesn't offer much comfort, as the state GOP was as complicit as the Dems in securing tax financing for the Twins stadium.

In the interest of fairness, I am willing to treat the Vikings just like we treated the Twins: we'll build them a new stadium after they win two championships.

If the Vikings' owner wants to hold Minnesota hostage with a threat to move the team, I say, let 'em move. I am fully prepared to root for the Packers.

Rev, the gas tax is supposed to fund highway construction and maintenance, not subsidies for oil production.

Oh, please. First of all, both Congress and most of the state governments were careful to make sure that gas tax revenues weren't required to be used for road service. Smart play, since the tax revenue from it exceeds what we spend on road maintenance. The amount left over afterwards covers everything that could plausibly be called an "oil subsidy", with billions left over.

The truth of the matter is that the government makes more money off of the sale of a gallon of gasoline than the oil industry does.

But an examination of the American tax code indicates that oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process.

CBO says there's a six year, thirty six billion dollar deficit in transportation because of the lack of gas tax revenue.

I read that at Grover's ATR site, so you can call him a liar if you want to. BTW, Grover wasn't for more taxes (surprise), he was for cutting wages, UR (aka unspecified reform), and continuing to fund transportation w/ general revenue including deficit dollars.

Nice defense of DC being a special interest peddling machine where tax goodies (that give an advantage to an individual industry or company) go to the highest bidder.

You cons really now how to argue against the free market where the best ideas survive and prosper because everybody is on a level playing field. As you see the best connected deserve their special deals. For y'all it's best to let the government choose the winners, and losers.

I hope the TPers share this sort of thinking, otherwise they're going to be disappointed w/ the Rs.

Many of us objected to ethanol years ago, because it was a zero-sum game at best, and used food stock for non-food purposes. Aside from the whole green-environment thing, let's take a slightly different twist: politicians who will say anything to push their personal agenda, that primarily being their getting elected. One of the problems President Obama is facing is overselling what he can do, and his disgruntled leftist supporters. They are mad he didn't do enough, and campaign promises are unfulfilled.

Here in Wisconsin many on the left are encouraging the Governor-elect to forsake his campaign promises and keep the car-speed-rail. They have no honor. For them a campaign promise is just something which is said to get elected, and can be ignored when convenient. Unfortunately, this lack of honor is common among both Democrats and Republicans. My hope is that there are men and women in public life who believe in honor and integrity. We need them, and we need to be them.